Page 217 - Štemberger Tina, Čotar Konrad Sonja, Rutar Sonja, Žakelj Amalija. Ur. 2022. Oblikovanje inovativnih učnih okolij. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem
P. 217
Using Academic Online Conference in Teaching and Learning Process
nally, an online conference was conducted during the last three weeks of the
semester, where the students managed discussions on their own paper and
commented on other students’ papers.
Writing an abstract for a conference was a new experience for the students.
One of the students told us that this activity was for him surprisingly the most
difficult and at the same time the most rewarding task in the course. He said
that he thought that this task will be much easier as it involved to write only
a 150–200 words paragraph:
I thought it will take me an hour or two to think about the topic and
the main argument, and then write a paragraph about it. But soon, I re-
alised that this was not as simple as I thought, as brainstorming about
my main argument led me to a completely different topic and research
question. This required reading new literature and changing concep-
tual ideas. It took me a few weeks to come to an abstract that I was
satisfied with. However, this experience was very rewarding. Not only
that my essay was now much easier to structure and write, but also I
have learned so many new things in the process, and it opened to me
a completely new field of knowledge, about which I knew nothing be-
fore writing the abstract for my conference paper.
This is something that happened a lot in an academic work, and it is prob-
ably the best part of an academic life. So, it was satisfying to notice that a
student get such an experience.
The students submitted their papers in week 8 of the course. We, the mod-
erators of the course, acted as editors in this case. We wrote a letter of ac-
ceptance in a form and a style as a head of the committee of an academic
conference would write the letter. During the entire course, the aim was to
blend the students’ learning with as authentic as possible experience in real
life. The students were given two papers from other students to conduct peer
reviews. The guidelines for conducting peer review was adopted from the
guidelines of real academic conferences. The process of peer review was the
same as in other academic conferences, where the students wrote peer re-
views, recommending the papers to be accepted, accepted with minor or
major revisions, or rejected. There was only a minor deviation from the real
life academic peer review process. As the students spent four years together
in a very small group, we thought that it would be easy for a student to iden-
tify who is the author of a specific article or a peer review, so we have decided
to not present to students peer reviews of their papers. This enabled the stu-
217
nally, an online conference was conducted during the last three weeks of the
semester, where the students managed discussions on their own paper and
commented on other students’ papers.
Writing an abstract for a conference was a new experience for the students.
One of the students told us that this activity was for him surprisingly the most
difficult and at the same time the most rewarding task in the course. He said
that he thought that this task will be much easier as it involved to write only
a 150–200 words paragraph:
I thought it will take me an hour or two to think about the topic and
the main argument, and then write a paragraph about it. But soon, I re-
alised that this was not as simple as I thought, as brainstorming about
my main argument led me to a completely different topic and research
question. This required reading new literature and changing concep-
tual ideas. It took me a few weeks to come to an abstract that I was
satisfied with. However, this experience was very rewarding. Not only
that my essay was now much easier to structure and write, but also I
have learned so many new things in the process, and it opened to me
a completely new field of knowledge, about which I knew nothing be-
fore writing the abstract for my conference paper.
This is something that happened a lot in an academic work, and it is prob-
ably the best part of an academic life. So, it was satisfying to notice that a
student get such an experience.
The students submitted their papers in week 8 of the course. We, the mod-
erators of the course, acted as editors in this case. We wrote a letter of ac-
ceptance in a form and a style as a head of the committee of an academic
conference would write the letter. During the entire course, the aim was to
blend the students’ learning with as authentic as possible experience in real
life. The students were given two papers from other students to conduct peer
reviews. The guidelines for conducting peer review was adopted from the
guidelines of real academic conferences. The process of peer review was the
same as in other academic conferences, where the students wrote peer re-
views, recommending the papers to be accepted, accepted with minor or
major revisions, or rejected. There was only a minor deviation from the real
life academic peer review process. As the students spent four years together
in a very small group, we thought that it would be easy for a student to iden-
tify who is the author of a specific article or a peer review, so we have decided
to not present to students peer reviews of their papers. This enabled the stu-
217
